A Mind and its Time: The Development of Isaiah Berlin's Political Thought

Joshua L. Cherniss

Abstract

This book offers a detailed account of the genesis and development of Isaiah Berlin’s political thought, philosophical views, and historical understanding, locating his evolving intellectual interests and political positions in the context of the events and trends of inter-war and post-war intellectual and political life. Special emphasis is placed on the roots of Berlin’s later pluralism in philosophical and cultural debates of the inter-war period, and on his evolving account of liberty. The latter is shown to have been shaped by a response to the liberal confrontation with totalitarianism i ... More

This book offers a detailed account of the genesis and development of Isaiah Berlin’s political thought, philosophical views, and historical understanding, locating his evolving intellectual interests and political positions in the context of the events and trends of inter-war and post-war intellectual and political life. Special emphasis is placed on the roots of Berlin’s later pluralism in philosophical and cultural debates of the inter-war period, and on his evolving account of liberty. The latter is shown to have been shaped by a response to the liberal confrontation with totalitarianism in the inter-war period and the political and ethical dilemmas of the early Cold War era; and to what Berlin saw as a dangerous embrace of an elitist, technocratic, scientistic, and ‘managerial’ intellectual and political stance by liberals themselves. It is also shown that Berlin’s attitude towards what he called ‘positive liberty’ was from the start more complicated and ambivalent than is often realized. The book reveals the multiplicity of Berlin’s influences and interlocutors, the shifts in his thinking, and the striking consistency of his concerns and commitments. In doing so it sheds new light on Berlin’s thought, and offers a better understanding of his place in the political thought of the twentieth century, and, particularly, his contribution to the emergence of a particular strain of liberal thought.

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